


Last One Home

by nawsies



Series: Two Sides of the Same Coin [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Planet, Geographical Isolation, I wanted to write fluff but it's hard when Lance is alone on an alien planet you feel?, Lance-centric, Loneliness, M/M, THIS IS SELF-INDULGENT, after episode 11, keith/lance is v minimal, kind of angst at times?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 18:02:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7811833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nawsies/pseuds/nawsies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being flung through space Lance ends up alone at the far reaches of the galaxy waiting for a pick-up. It'll be a long time coming, but hey, at least the atmosphere wasn't 10% heroin. </p><p>"Sometimes Lance would sleep in Blue, her quiet whirring similar enough to the sound of the castle he could lie to himself, say he was back on board the ship and he’d wake up to Hunk’s cooking and Pidge’s latest invention...Lance enjoyed people, he enjoyed making other people happy and his own company was never as good as another person’s laugh at his joke, or even at his expense. The Paladins were the best people he’d ever met, family excluded, and he missed them more than he cared to admit. He’d been away from Earth for a long time now but it was only since landing on this planet that he really felt like he was away from home."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last One Home

Lance had done his fair share of barrel rolls in his time flying, he’d had plenty of simulation crashes, been fired at by enemy Galra ships on numerous occasions but being flung through a wormhole and spiralling out of control through space in an unknown galaxy being drawn in by a strange planet’s gravitational pull was the worst thing he had ever experienced. He suddenly felt sorry for all the times he mocked Hunk’s motion sickness because holding down his breakfast was becoming mission impossible. It was only a strong sense of pride and a deep respect for Blue that kept him from up-chucking space Goo all over the controls. When they finally hit the ground it would’ve been a relief if not for the agonizing pain.

Lance thanked Allura for the armour, without it he was fairly certain the impact would have been the end of him. As it was he was winded, bruised, there was blood running into his eye from a head wound, what he hit his head on he wasn’t sure, but that seemed to be the worst of his injuries. He was going to be stiff and sore and probably have a couple gnarly scars but, he’d live. Blue on the other hand was flashing a hundred and one warning lights at him and he wasn’t sure where to begin. His basic engineering class at the Garrison didn’t exactly cover high-tech alien space Lion maintenance 101.

He was unsteady on his feet as he climbed out of his Lion. In the open air he backed up a few feet and stared at Blue. There were large dents in her armour, colour scraped away with gouges deep in the metal. She was covered with her barrier now that he’d stepped out but instead of sitting proudly, she lay on her side looking eerily like road kill. He worried about how hard he’d hit his head that he didn’t even notice he had walked out of her mouth sideways. He worried more about how he was going to get her up and running so he could get back to the Castle of Lions.

Lance laced his fingers together behind his head and pulled at his hair. “Where the fuck are we Blue?”

“Lance!?” Allura’s voice rang out in his helmet and Lance let out an ungodly shriek. 

“Princess!?” Lance yelped.

“What a relief, we’ve been trying to get in touch with you for days.” Allura said.

“Days?” Lance asked. “I only just landed.”

“Time got a little, messed up with the wormhole. I don’t really understand it myself.” Coran said. “It has something to do with Galra magic. It’s quite fascinating from what I’ve found…”

“I’m going to stop you there Coran, as nice as it is to hear your voice I recommend saving the science for Pidge.” Lance said. “Speaking of which, how’re the other Paladins? I’m not too sure what happened, one second I was in the Castle next I was flying through space getting my ass beat by gravity.”

“The other Paladins are in much the same shape as you from what we understand. Hunk and Keith are on their own like you, Pidge and Shiro landed together. Thankfully since my life force is connected to you all I could keep a COMM link open waiting to hear from you. If you need to contact us you should be able to contact the Castle from Blue?”

“Blue’s pretty beat up,” Lance admitted, his eyes flicking back to Blue’s prone form and wincing. “Com-link is one of the things that’s down. I can’t do anything for her, no tools and as much as I hate to admit it, no knowledge.”

“The lions are alive Lance, Blue has their own healing system, the repair procedures take time and energy but, they will be back up and running in no time.” Allura assured him. “Just give it time.”

“You’ll have plenty of it.” Coran said, ever diplomatic with sensitive subjects. He had his problem solving voice on and Lance could see him in his mind pulling on his moustache as he tried to choose the best course of action. “Our scans show that you’ve been thrown furthest from us. We know very little about the political climate of the planet you’re on. There have been no distress signals from them for the past ten thousand years; that could either mean they’ve been left alone by the Galra or that the Galra took over without a fight.”

“We don’t have the energy reserves to wormhole that many times so it’s going to be slow going. We were on our way to Pidge and Shiro but now we know where you are, we could go to you and then work our way back but…” Allura started.

“Get the others first,” Lance closed his eyes and tried to push past feeling like he had just signed his death warrant, “I’ll be fine. Just, keep them safe? Tell them I said ‘hi' and make sure Keith gets a haircut.”

“We will come for you as soon as we can Lance.” Allura promised, she sounded as sincere as ever and Lance was comforted by it.

“Try not to miss me too much,” Lance said.

“I’ll call you through your helmet with updates, use Blue when you can. Good luck Paladin.”

Lance flicked off the com-link and stood up, looking round himself and dusting himself down. “Right,” he said to no-one, “shouldn’t be too hard to survive a hostile alien planet. Time to set up camp.

 

* * *

 

 

Lance had been exploring for the past week, or at least what was a week on this planet, he wasn’t sure how the time here corresponded with time back at the Castle. It was nice having a natural day/night cycle rather than an artificial light system. He found himself lucky with the planet’s long days and short nights, although he quickly learned that dusk was a near non-existent time of day and he had to be back at camp when the shadows grew longer or it would be pitch black and he’d end up sleeping in a tree. That was not a comfortable experience.

It was so nice to have trees again. They were so similar to the ones back on Earth, wooden trunks and branches with leaves, though here the leaves were blue. Sometimes he lay down where the canopy was thickest and stared up at the leaves pretending he was looking down on the ocean. Landing in a forested planet was also great for his food supply. Although landing in a hostile forest was not the best, turned out some of the trees had a thing against him. They behaved like giant venus fly traps when he walked past, thankfully none so far had been big enough to swallow him whole but he had savage looking bite marks round his thigh from where one had tried to take off a leg.

Despite the killer plants, the forest was a haven of food and shelter. It was risky business, choosing what was edible and what wasn’t but after a call to Coran, who was ever happy to help out, Lance felt pretty confident in what he was doing. He thanked the stars that the Castle’s database had information on this planet’s flora though because otherwise he would have been screwed.

Once Lance made a shelter, gathered a food store, marked a few trails to places where he’d found edible food and shifted Blue under the cover of the trees, he had felt ready to explore further, to see more of this planet he was calling his temporary home. It was a great decision. He never saw any humanoid aliens but the life on this planet looked like it had wandered out of a fantasy book. He’d watched from above as large green elephant like creatures had carved pathways through the undergrowth with their enormous jade tusks. He’d seen antelope with long spiralling horns which bloomed with flowers as the sun climbed higher in the sky and watched the petals be carried away with the wind as it fell again.  He’d been terrified out of his mind when he saw the sabre-toothed fox hidden in the shadows, it was a deep navy blue colour with purple eyes and it had tilted its head when it saw him, waiting and watching, then it had blinked and was gone. Lance took his bayard when he went exploring ever since.

Blue had shifted and was sitting upright now. Lance had run a simple diagnostic and found that the worst of the damage was well on its way to full repair, there were only a manageable five warning lights now and Lance could rest easy knowing that Blue wasn’t going to crap out on him. There wasn’t a desperate need to fly off this planet now as there had been when he landed but, it was nice to know he could leave if he had to.

His own internal healing system wasn’t working as quickly as Blue’s. The cut down his forehead had an unfortunate tendency of opening again, same went for the bite on his thigh. He’d found a basic first aid kit in Blue but he was a bit hesitant to trust the creams and lotions, he wasn’t sure how Altean medication worked but he was fairly certain the expiration date would’ve been and gone somewhere in the past 10,000 years. There were things that looked a lot like butterfly stitches in there though so he’d put those on his forehead cut, using Blue’s now functioning com-link as a mirror was not the best method of first aid application but, it had worked OK.

All in all, the planet wasn’t so bad. He hadn’t been shot at in a week which felt like a new record since arriving in space, he could kick back lying on Blue’s back staring up at the trees as the wind sang its way through the leaves. Every Paladin needed a vacation from saving the universe at some point and relaxing on a planet that reminded him so much of home was incredible.

To Lance’s shock and joy, as he lay on Blue’s back humming old songs his parents used to sing as they danced in their kitchen, it started to rain. Real fresh water falling from the sky around him and Lance could’ve cried it was so nice to see it. He slid off Blue’s back and whipped his shoes off, spinning on the damp earth getting grass caught in his feet he flung his arms out wide and laughed. It was a torrential downpour. Water poured from between his fingers and he smiled as it ran over his face, catching in his eyelashes. He let out a sigh and felt his worries fall away with the rain. Yeah, he thought to himself, all in all this planet was pretty sweet.

 

* * *

 

 

It turned out, dancing in the rain was just as bad for his health out in space as it was back on Earth and for the past four days Lance was out of action with the flu. All of his muscles felt useless, every time he moved he ached, his head felt like his skin had been pulled to tightly around his skull and it was slowly caving inwards, but at least he’d stopped vomiting. Lance wasn’t sure how long he’d been fading in and out of wakefulness but this time he was jarred out of his nap by the sound of his helmet ringing at him. Past Lance was a clever bastard and had moved it right beside his makeshift pillow so he didn’t have to get up to respond.

“Lance?” Allura’s voice rang out from his helmet once he flicked the com-link on.

“Hey,” Lance winced at how raspy his voice sounded. His throat felt so dry he was surprised he could even talk. He supposed raspy was better than silent. 

“Are you OK?” Shiro asked, and oh boy was it good to hear his voice. Rescue mission #1, clearly a success.

“Shiro! My man! So they got you and Pidge from whatever hell-scape you ended up on?”

“You sound terrible.”

“I just woke up from a long nap,” Lance felt strangely guilty lying to Shiro, it was like lying to his grandmother but, they had enough on their plates. Hunk and Keith were still out there. “Just trying to wake myself up.”

“It’s good to hear you’re resting well Paladin,” Allura said, “we just wanted a status report and to inform you of Pidge and Shiro’s return. We should find Keith sometime in the next week.”

“I’m optimistic that with Pidge to help me with repairs we should be able to have the Castle running at optimum capacity by then so we should, in theory, be able to wormhole to Hunk.” Coran said. 

“That’s good to hear.” Lance rested back into his bed. “Don’t let Keith stay on his own for too long, he gets all broody.”

“I’ll tell him you were worried.” Shiro said.

“Don’t you dare,” Lance tried to sound threatening but his stomach was tightening and he knew all too well what was coming. “Hey I got to go, day is fading and I need to find some dinner. Let me know when you find Keith.”

Lance ended the call and lay on his back taking deep breaths, if they found something strange in his rushed ending they didn’t call him back about it and he kept his pride by not barfing while on com. Small miracles. He comforted himself knowing Shiro and Pidge were safe, he only had to survive another couple weeks and he’d be home free, it was too easy.

 

* * *

 

Five days later Lance was struggling. He had called the Castle daily, chatted with Pidge about Lion healing systems, told stories about being back at the Garrison and found whatever plants he could so he had a reason to hear Coran ramble together about how fascinating it all was. The silence of the planet felt claustrophobic and he would even take anything over this ominous absence of noise any day. Lance had camped in the woods plenty of times back on Earth and he knew that larger wildlife would stay away so he didn’t expect to see the deer-creatures any time soon and he was more than happy for the weird fox to never cross his path again, but at least on Earth the small wildlife were curious, at least the forest was full of bird song, at least it didn’t feel like he was the only person in the universe. This planet was eerie and foreign and, dare he say it, alien.

Lance was half sure he was hallucinating when he saw a ship falling from the sky. He couldn’t make out its shape properly and if he squinted he thought it might have been one of the Castle’s speeders. As soon as it got near though, it was clear this was not a rescue. He collapsed his shelter and dashed back into the trees with his bayard morphing into his trusty rifle as he ran, hidden by the underbrush he waited. The Galra patrol ship landed only a few hundred metres away, four Galra emerged and immediately made their way across to Blue. Lance knew she had been hidden by the trees from above but it was clear they’d spotted her from the purposeful way they marched. Even with his shelter down, his cover was blown.

Lance was torn, he wanted to hear why they were here, if they’d found him specifically or if this was just routine, if more would come if he took them out. He wanted to know if they’d seen any other Paladins, if they’d got to them before Allura and Coran could. There were any number of questions he could ask, that he wanted to ask but, there was a calculating ruthless part of himself that whispered, he only needed one person to answer those questions. It was them or him, Galra were all shoot first and ask questions later. If he stepped out of these trees with four against one, those odds would have him dead or imprisoned in seconds. Lance didn’t want to stoop to their level, but he wanted to survive more than he wanted to adhere to his moral code.

 Two Galra were down before the others even realised what happened. The third reached for his blaster but his hands only skimmed the metal before Lance shot him through the head. The fourth dropped to his knees with his hands raised and Lance hoped that was a universal signal for surrender. He moved out into the open watching the Galra through the scope, still carefully aimed at his head.

“Why are you here?” Lance asked.

“Recon mission, looking for resources.” The Galra replied quickly.

Lance was silent, waiting to decide what question would be best, waiting for his hands to stop shaking.

“Please let me go,” the Galra begged and it was such a jarring sight that Lance fumbled with his rifle. Thankfully the Galra didn’t notice as they had bowed their head to the ground, “please I have a family.”

It hit like a blaster to the stomach. Lance had never considered that the Galra had human things like families. He assumed they were a war bred race of brutes who revelled in killing and nothing else, which was naïve of him, it was childish, it was painting the world in black and white to better justify his own moral standpoint and oh god, how many children had he orphaned? Lance felt shaky on his feet and wanted this over with as soon as possible, he didn’t want to have an emotional crisis in front of the enemy. Was this guy even the enemy at this point?

“Can you plausibly lie about where these three went?” Lance asked. His voice was weaker than he wanted it to be, he was about to try negotiate for both their lives and his voice was wavering like grass in the wind.

“Yes, scouts have been going missing more and more recently…” The Galra looked hesitant before he continued talking, “word of Voltron has spread quickly across the galaxy and it has not been so easy for the Galra.”

“I’m, wait no I’m not sorry you guys are dicks.” Lance frowned, his mother always said he was too easily swayed by a sob story. When he went on a gap year before joining the Garrison he had bought a guy he barely knew a plane ticket home after they broke their arm and couldn’t make the flight they’d booked. His mum had given him hell, probably because it was with the credit card she’d given him ‘for your emergencies Lance not any old emergency’. What she overlooked though was that the guy did pay Lance back a month later and it all turned out fine.

“We are soldiers.” The Galra sat back on his heels and shrugged and Lance was struck again by just how, human he seemed even with the fluffy purple ears and yellow eyes. 

“Yeah well, moving on. If I let you go are you just going to run back to your Commander or whatever and tell them a Paladin is here and I’m going to have a hundred Galra on my ass?”

“No I swear, I’ll say nothing of your presence here.”

“I’m going to regret this I know it,” Lance muttered. “I’ll promise not to kill you if you promise not to kill me?”

It may have been weakness but when the Galra soldier nodded vehemently, Lance felt a great weight fall from his shoulders. He didn’t have the stomach for killing in cold blood, which was a strange thought to have with three corpses around him and a fourth lined up in the crosshairs.

“Go.” The moment the word fell from his lips the Galra was up, moving cautiously towards his ship, eyes trained on Lance’s rifle.

“You’re not planning on getting a little way off the ground and shooting me from your ship are you?” Lance asked.

“I swear on the Galra Empire I will not harm you. You have given me my life, I will give you yours.”

“If both our lives are safe,” Lance started, not sure how to phrase what he wanted to ask, “then before you go, I just wanted to ask, what do you do for your dead?”

“What?” The Galra froze, his eyes were comically wide as they shifted up to Lance’s face.

“Funeral rites? Um, like…”

“We burn our dead.” The Galra’s voice was so soft Lance struggled to hear it. “Would you, would you let me stay to, do it properly?”

“Please,” Lance said, finally lowering his rifle. He was all too aware of the blaster still at the Galra’s side but, before Lance even had a chance to ask him to drop it, he unclipped it from its holster and it fell to the ground. He walked over to his comrades and started reciting what sounded like prayers in a rushed voice with his hands outstretched, palms raised to the sky.

Lance walked over to join him but only lasted a moment before his stomach rolled, he promptly dropped his rifle and threw up. In reality, he knew he had killed Galra before but he’d never stuck around to see the aftermath, never been faced with a corpse and cold yellow eyes staring up at him. They were his enemies yes, they’d kill him yes, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have lives, didn’t mean they weren’t just following orders, didn’t mean that he hadn’t just taken three lives. It was made all the more real by the grieving soldier beside him blessing their passage to whatever afterlife Galra believed in.

Lance held his head between his knees and slowed his breathing, his mother’s voice in his ears telling him to breathe in and out was jarring. Oh god what would she think of him when he came home with his hands dripping with blood? Defender of the Universe or not he was a murderer now and he had three bodies to burn. 

“You’re still a child.” The Galra commented, the prayers apparently complete.

“How old were you when you took your first life?” Lance asked.

“I do not know if we count our years in the same way, but I was well into my adulthood. I had been a guard for many years before I was sent out to…before I killed for the first time.”

Lance made a small noise of acknowledgement and stared at the bodies without really seeing them. “I just wanted to be a pilot.”

“I just wanted to be a husband. We play with the hands we’re dealt.”

 "That’s a human phrase.”

“I heard it from a prisoner once, a long time ago.” Later Lance would realise he should have questioned him about that, that it probably would’ve come from Shiro, or Pidge’s family, or maybe other humans had been taken by the Galra before them and that too would have been vital information. Instead, Lance had helped him gather together anything that seemed flammable and built a funeral pyre in a clearing away from his camp. It took most of the day, the sun was setting by the time the fire started. The stars blinked into existence as the sparks danced in the sky, creating the illusion that they reached the sky and caught flame up there.

The Galra stayed until the pyre burned down to ash. Lance still didn’t ask his name, as odd as it was that felt too personal. In his defence, the Galra didn’t ask for his either. Lance had shivered as the world grew colder and the Galra had gifted him extra clothes from his ship. The Galra’s stomach had growled and Lance offered him food from his meagre stash. It was a strange companionship, Lance was thankful for it, it helped numb some of the loneliness, but he was as baffled as he was grateful. 

When all that was left was scattered embers and ash, they pressed a hand to Lance’s shoulder and whispered a thanks. The Galra went aboard his ship and, of all things waved at Lance as the door closed. He spared one last look at the ashes of his comrades and was gone. True to his word the speeder shot away from the planet’s surface and off into space without a shot fired. Lance had no way of knowing if their pact would last, if he would go back to his Commander and tell them of the Blue Paladin alone on a distant planet but hopefully the other Paladins would pick him up long before he found out the consequences of his actions today. It was wishful thinking. There was no time left to ponder that though, it had arguably been the strangest experience of his life and all Lance wanted was to curl up on his bed and sleep, wake up in the morning and find it had all been a fever dream.

He was glad of nightfall. Days were too harsh. Lance had been feeling like he was living from call to call with the Castle, just waiting for more news, hoping for some semblance of human contact and being told to wait it out a little longer. That he’d found solace in a Galra soldier of all things spoke volumes about his loneliness. There was a large part of him that wanted to reach for his com-link and call Allura, tell her the Galra knew where he was and demand to be picked up but Lance didn’t know what situation Hunk and Keith were in because, to his shame, he hadn’t asked. At least his planet was hospitable, as tough as this was at least he had food, shelter, drinking water. Every day he was getting stronger, it was getting easier to survive, but staying alive wasn’t the same as staying sane. It was getting harder to cope with the anxiety and insecurity, there was always the fear that the other Paladins would just decide he wasn’t worth the risk and leave him. It wasn’t particularly comforting to think they’d have to come for the Blue Lion, he’d rather have enough faith in the strength of their bond that they’d come for him. But at least there was some comfort.

It helped when night came. When the stars came out it, when the planet was still, it was easy to imagine his rescue. If he didn’t look too closely he could imagine they were the same constellations he saw from Earth. Or he could trace new constellations, write the stories of his adventures into the sky. Some nights, each star became the light of the castle on its way back to him. At night it was easy to dream. Lance needed the night, the illusion of closeness because otherwise if an alien beast didn’t stumble into his camp and kill him, this isolation would.

Sometimes Lance would sleep in Blue, her quiet whirring similar enough to the sound of the castle he could lie to himself, say he was back on board the ship and he’d wake up to Hunk’s cooking and Pidge’s latest invention. He’d have a morning repartee with Keith and make some bet with him, then Shiro would tell them to grow up. He had never been one to find comfort in his own company. Living alone in the desert for a year like Keith had done sounded more like a personal hell than a happy alternative to the Garrison. Lance enjoyed people, he enjoyed making other people happy and his own company was never as good as another person’s laugh at his joke, or even at his expense. The Paladins were the best people he’d ever met, family excluded, and he missed them more than he cared to admit. He’d been away from Earth for a long time now but it was only since landing on this planet that he really felt like he was away from home.

 

* * *

 

 

For the first time since Pidge and Shiro had been rescued, it was Allura who called Lance. Although the voice that greeted him was distinctly, not Allura.

“Lance.” The relief in Keith’s voice was profound, too raw for Lance to have imagined and it had Lance smiling dopily, glad that the helmet com-link didn’t allow for video feed.

“Keith, if I’m not mistaken it sounds like you missed me.” Lance teased. 

“Of course I missed you.” Keith said it like it was a fact, like Lance was ridiculous for thinking otherwise, there was a moment of silence and then Keith was coughing and Lance could clearly imagine the blush rising on his cheeks. “I mean…we all missed you, you know, you’re family, we need you. You’re, so loud it’s easy to notice when you’re gone.”

Lance smiled to himself, he may have started the rivalry but even as they got closer Keith was the one who kept in going despite their numerous ‘bonding moments’. If it was the stable ground that made Keith feel comfortable then Lance was more than happy to keep it going. As Lance found his place with the Paladins he was less insecure, less envious of Keith’s abilities as he found his own strengths; he’d never be a great swordsman but Keith would never have his sniping skills. As the layers of resentment fell away, he found that Keith was actually a really good guy. Even though they still mocked each other but, it lacked the bite it used to have.

Maybe it was true as well that absence makes the heart grow fonder. They’d entered a strange sort of limbo in their relationship that Lance had tried not to think about too much, too afraid of what it might mean and even more afraid that it was all in his head. Back at the castle it had felt like they had all the time in the world to go slow and work things out. Then, landing here Lance was less concerned with whether or not Keith would let him kiss him when he got back and more focussed on where he’d find his next meal. Which wasn’t to say he hadn’t thought about he and Keith while he was here, it was just he thought it about it a lot less.

“Moving on from how I’m the life of the party and without me the Castle feels empty; how was your planetary adventures?” Lance asked.

“That planet was, bizarre. They’d never heard of Galra, never heard of Voltron. The ground was spongy, Red hated it. Except it was good that she didn’t sustain much damage when we landed, but that was probably because I actually know how to fly unlike someone I know…”

“Oi!” Lance snapped. “Blue and I would’ve been fine if it wasn’t for all the trees.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

Keith went on to regale Lance with stories of this planet, the strange winged aliens who had mourned Keith’s ‘mutation’ (Lance had asked if he was sure they meant his lack of wings and weren’t actually talking about his mullet), Lance told him about the deer with the flowering antlers, Ketih told him about the library in catacombs under the city, which would have been eerie except for the fact the whole space was painted in bright oranges and yellows. Apparently the whole planet had felt like a carnival.

“Oh, Allura wanted me to tell you that we are worm-holing to Hunk, which means our ETA with you is six of your days? Hunk has been having the time of his life, his planet treats him like a god.” Keith had run out of things to say about his experience and Lance was sad to realise the conversation was winding down. It had been, nice, hearing about Keith’s adventures, hearing from Keith in general, it was comforting. He didn’t want to hang up yet but he also didn’t want to burden anyone with his loneliness. Everyone else had coped fine with what they endured, he could too.

“You couldn’t have opened with that? Were you that desperate to keep me on the line that you had to save it for a closing statement?” Lance teased. “That’s awesome though, fresh fruit is great but I really miss that food goo.”

“Sure Lance,” Keith said in that way of his that let Lance know he saw right through him, but he wasn’t going to call him out on it. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Over and out,” Lance said.

“Over and out.”  

The link shut off and Lance was alone again. Outside the moon was full, the stars bright lights through the leaves and the whole world was cast in shades of blue. It was calming, it was an impressionistic painting of the world with colours bleeding into each other and nothing definite, only implied. The stars seemed brighter and closer than ever and Lance’s heart felt light in his chest. His family were all safe, as safe as they could be, and they were coming from him, only a few more days and he would be home.

  

* * *

 

 

Hunk’s rescue had gone smoothly. Only hours after Keith’s call Hunk had been on the comm-link telling Lance about how great his planet had been, how much he’d learned from them about working with the nature and also about some intriguing alien tech. Hunk understood Lance better than anyone aboard the Castle of Lions and Lance no longer had to initiate calls when he was lonely; Hunk called every day without fail, sometimes more than once. He once called just to tell him about a joke Pidge had made and he wanted Lance to share in the moment.

Lance was ages away from Blue when he heard a Paladin Lion’s roar high above him. They were early, last he heard the ETA was three of his days but, apparently they either hit some good conditions for travel or Coran’s maths was terrible. He didn’t want to be angry about them being early, in all honesty he was mostly relieved but he was painfully aware of what the other Paladins would find when they got to his camp before him, Galra clothing strung out over branches and no sign of him anywhere except the battered and bloody armour he’d landed in. They all knew how quickly things could go wrong in a Galra infested universe. Running down the path back he thought that he probably should have left a note or something but then again, he wasn’t exactly expecting company.

Lance broke through the edge of the trees to see the Red Lion sitting beside Blue, Keith gripping a Galra shirt in his hand and the other Lions further back in the sky, slower to land. They were here, they were here, they were here and he wasn’t alone anymore. Or maybe he was hallucinating but Keith still had that shitty mullet and if this was his imagination he would’ve hacked that right off which had to mean they were here. His heart was pounding, not just because of his mad dash to get here but because, his home had finally come to him.

“You were in such a rush to see me you couldn’t wait for the others huh?” Lance called out. It felt like time slowed as Keith turned round and faced him, eyes wide and disbelieving and a ghost of a smile on his lips and Lance held his arms wide, part in celebration of the moment and partly because this was a bonding moment if he’d ever seen one and he wanted a damn hug.

He wondered how he must look, his hair was long and knotty and he hadn’t shaved in this past, however long he had been here. He wore half-healed wounds as marks of his survival, he had lost weight since apparently a plant based diet and daily hikes didn’t agree with him, overall he looked pretty savage but up until now he hadn’t had to care about any of that. Standing here with Keith scrutinizing him, staring at him like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing Lance was of all things self-conscious. Yet before he could say anything, Keith was running at him with a smile on his face. He barrelled into his arms, pressing his forehead to Lance’s own and if Lance wasn’t mistaken there were tears in his eyes.

“You’re here.” Keith gasped, his hand twisting in Lance’s hair and holding him close.

“Nice to see you too Mullet,” Lance wrapped both arms around Keith’s waist and held him close.

They stood like that, revelling in each other’s nearness until the other’s landed, even then they were still hugging when Hunk barrelled into them, lifting both of them off their feet in a bear hug as he yelled Lance’s name. When Lance’s feet hit the ground Pidge was suddenly there hugging him too, shoving themselves between Lance and Keith, telling him not to get flung to the further corner of the universe ever again or ‘so help me God’. When Pidge let go Shiro was suddenly there, a hand tight on his shoulder, praise for surviving so well, a steady comforting rock to let Lance know he could finally hand over control. Keith’s hand was still tight around his own, he stepped closer and rested his head on Lance’s shoulder. It occurred to Lance that Keith had let go of him once since he'd reached him. No one seemed quite sure of what to say but, nothing really needed to be said, everyone seemed to just be basking in being back together again, whole and safe.

Lance had been afraid that when they all found each other again there would be tension, there would be an awkwardness from being apart for so long. He wasn’t sure what anyone else went through but, he knew he was definitely changed by his encounter with the Galra soldier, for better or for worse. It was definitely going to complicate things next time he went into battle but, that was a problem for future Lance. For now, he was glad to see that he still fit within the team, hell he was glad to see that they were still a team, they were a family and honestly, even with everything else going on, Lance was ready to sleep in a real bed. Maybe cuddling Keith, who knew, the world was suddenly infinitely large again and full of possibilities.

“Come on,” Shiro said finally, “I’m sure Allura and Coran want to see you’re safe too.”

“Can’t keep hogging all this glory to yourselves. We've got a galaxy to save,” Lance grinned, throwing his free arm round Shiro's shoulders and marching off towards Blue. “Let’s go home.”

  

**Author's Note:**

> This started out self indulgent because I love fics about Lance dealing with being alone after ep11, and ended up this? and I'm not 100% sure what this is? I love Lance but I find him very hard to write. If someone wants to beta for my future fics (or if you just want to chat about Voltron) feel free to hit me up on [tumblr](http://www.dreamsofbooksandmonsters.tumblr.com/)
> 
> This is kind of going to be part of a series? It's just me exploring Keith and Lance's relationship while also playing with some of my favourite tropes but there is more to come so, if you like my writing, watch this space. /finger guns.


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